


Almost The Ship of the Valkyries

by phinnia



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-21 11:04:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16575230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phinnia/pseuds/phinnia
Summary: Post-Deadlock AU.   Harry goes from his old ship onto the new ship with Samantha Wildman's baby and finds something very, very odd about the new ship.





	1. Chapter 1

Harry walked through the breach from one ship to the other, carrying Ensign Wildman’s baby girl.  
  
And blinked.  
  
He could have sworn _that_ baby was a _girl._   He _knew_ that baby was a _girl._    On the _other_ ship, that baby had _definitely_ been a _girl._  
  
He looked down.  
  
No, his eyes weren’t lying, the blanket color had definitely changed.  
  
He was _not_ going to look inside the baby’s diaper.  
  
He was _not going to look inside the baby’s diaper._  
  
He looked inside the baby’s diaper.  
  
No, this baby was _definitely_ _not a girl._  
  
  
He kept walking.  
  
Then he came across Samantha Wildman, who was holding her arms out.  
  
Harry put the bundle in them.  
  
“He’s so cute!”  Sammy says, nuzzling the baby’s nose.   “You probably want to see Tab, don’t you?”  
  
“You mean Tom.”   Harry says, smiling.     
  
“No, Tab.”  
  
Harry looked at her, feeling his smile fade.    “Sam, maybe you’d better explain.”  
  
  
  
So Sam walked him to his quarters, dodging around stuff that had fallen and flashing red lights, and she explained.  
  
This ship looked like _Voyager_ , and most of the people were the same, but some of them were different.     
  
He was different, for example.   He had been a woman named Heather.   And Tom was a woman named Tabitha.     
  
Captain Janeway was still the same, Tuvok was still the same.   Chakotay was apparently Taya on this ship.    B’Elanna was still B’Elanna.     
  
This was getting _weird_.  
  
“Okay, here you are!”   Sam said, stopping outside a door.   “Good luck!”  
  
“Thanks.”   Harry said, kind of numbly, and punched in the code.  
  
Not authorized.  
  
He tried the code for Tom’s quarters.  All ten digits of it.   Tom had not only been good at hacking, he was also good at not allowing other people to hack his stuff.  
  
That one worked.   The doors swished open.  
  
The quarters in front of him were dark.   The only lights were the stars outside.    There was someone sitting in a chair, staring out at the stars.  
  
“Computer, lights at twenty percent.”   Harry said softly, and looked around.  
  
There were a lot of the same type of things here he’d had in his old quarters.   Blue blanket and sheets on the bed.  Double bed, he noted.   Same.   Pictures of his parents.   A paper book on what would have been Tom’s side.   _Moby Dick_.   Same taste in literature.   Starfleet sofa, chair.   Desk.  Stack of padds on a table, teetering.   Shelf of paper books.     
  
His clarinet was resting on the music stand over by the sofa.  
  
“You aren’t Heather.”    A clear voice says from across the room.  “So grab your shit and get the fuck out of here.”  
  
“Look, Tom -“  
  
“Tab.”   The-female-version-of-Tom gets up, finally, and Harry sees her clearly for the first time.   Short blonde hair, pulled back from her face with a barrette.   The same bright blue eyes, red with half-shed tears.  A smear of grime on her uniform.   Small breasts, maybe medium-sized.  Same height as Tom, taller than Harry.     
  
She stalked across the room in three strides.  
  
“My name is _not Tom._ ”   she says through gritted teeth.   “My name is _Tabitha Euphonia Paris._    And you are _not Heather._    _So grab your shit and get the fuck out of here before I shove you out an airlock, okay?”_  
  
Harry turned around and fled.  
  
  
He found B’Elanna in Engineering, where she should be.   She was basically the same B’Elanna he’d already known.   She was reinstalling a warp field coil.  
  
“You aren’t Heather.”   she says, looking at him oddly.  
  
“I know.   I’m Harry.”    he sighs.  
  
“Okay.”   She shrugs.   “I can deal with that.   How’s Tab taking it?”  
  
“Um.   How bad is ‘really bad’?   She threatened to shove me out an airlock when I accidentally called her the wrong name.”  
  
“Okay, that’s pretty bad.    You can crash at my place.”   she shrugs.   “I mean, it makes sense.   They were serious.    Like, _really_ serious.    She’d asked Heather to marry her last week.”  
  
“Really?”   Now Harry feels rotten.  
  
“Yeah, really.   Right in the middle of the mess hall.   Hid the ring in Neelix’s leola root casserole.”  
  
“I don’t suppose your Neelix is a good cook?”  
  
“Nope.   Leola root tastes bad everywhere.”   B’Elanna laughs.     
  
  
B’Elanna’s quarters were the same as they’d always been.   That was comforting.     
  
There was a chime at the door.     
  
“Come in!”  B’Elanna shouted.  
  
The door swished open, revealing a short, dark-skinned woman with her hair back in a braid.   She was wearing a long brown skirt and a green top.  
  
“Taya!   Come in.”  B’Elanna waved her inside.   “This is Harry.   Used to be our Heather.   From the other ship?”  
  
“Oh, hi.”   She sits down and draws her feet underneath her.  “I’m not surprised to find you here, actually.   Lieutanant Paris was in a bit of a mood when I dropped by just now.   I asked her if she wanted to talk and she said I could shove that whole idea up my ass and rotate it ninety degrees.   But I wanted to welcome you to our ship.  It’s not much, but we try to get by in it.”  
  
“Thank you … Commander?”  
  
“Yes.”   she smiles, with a flash of Chakotay’s teeth.  
  
“Thank you.”    Harry smiles back.   “That’s very nice of you.   What do you do for fun around here?”  
  
  
They didn’t have Sandrine’s, but they did have a nice beach resort program that apparently Neelix had made.   It was patterned after a resort on Talaxia.   Harry and B’Elanna and Taya went down there for drinks, and then Harry and B’Elanna went back to her quarters.  
  
She makes him up a bed on the floor, and he sleeps.   He dreams of Tom, but his dreams are strange, fragmented.  
  
  
His first senior staff meeting is basically the same as all other senior staff meetings.   Taya always sits with her feet underneath her, but he sees a familar steel in her eyes.   B’Elanna is the same, and so is Tuvok.   The Doctor is the same irritating Doctor.    Captain Janeway is the same Captain Janeway.  
  
Tom - or Tabitha - runs in five minutes late.   Her eyes still look red.  Captain Janeway gives her a sympathetic look.  Harry still feels terrible.     
  
He tries to catch her at the end of the meeting.   “Look, I’m sorry.   About Heather.   I know … you were going to get married.”     
  
She looks at him silently.  
  
“I’m really sorry.”  
  
Still nothing.     
  
“B’Elanna told me you had a serious relationship.”  
  
“May I go?”   Tab says softly.     
  
“Go ahead.”    Harry sighs.     
  
“You can come by to get your stuff any time.”   Tab says, over her shouldet, and walks off toward the conn.    
  
  
She flies as well as Tom did. Her fingers dance across the panel like she’s playing a musical instrument.   Harry watches those fingers.   The nails are bitten off, ragged.     
  
He drops by Tab’s quarters at the end of the day.  
  
She answers.   Her eyes are still red, but she’s composed.   Harry sees faint tear tracks in the dim light.  
  
“I’m here to get my stuff.”   Harry says.  
  
Tab hands him a box.   His clarinet is sticking out of the top.    
  
“Thank you.   And I really am sorry.   About Heather.”  
  
She nods.    “Yeah.”      
  
The door swishes shut.  
  
  
A week later, Harry’s still sleeping on B’Elanna’s floor.   He’s waiting for crew quarters to open up.   He’s becoming accustomed to this ship, not the other one, and the people he’s found here.   He looks through his things - _Heather’s things._    His clarinet.   Padds of things.     
  
He looks through the padds.   Books.  Technical manuals.  Romance novels.   Poetry - Rumi, and Pablo Neruda.   Love poems.  Rumi was an ancient Persian Sufi mystic.   There are notes inside.   These were gifts, from Tabitha.     
  
Nail polish - light pink.   A hairbrush.  
  
“Do you want these?”  He offers them to B’Elanna.    
  
“Sure.”  She takes them, and starts painting her toenails.   “What do you think?”  
  
He shrugs.    “I don’t know.   Heather seemed to like it, anyway.”    
  
  
Another week passes.   He never seems to see Tab after shift, though.  
  
“She’s holed up in the other holodeck.”   Taya says, shrugging and smiling brilliantly as she accepts a mai tai from a passing waiter.    “She’s got some … bar program in there, some dive she used to hang out in in France.”  
  
“Sandrine’s.”   Harry breathes.  
  
“Is that what it’s called?   I don’t know.   It’s dark, there are too many guys that grab your butt.  Not my style.    She likes perfecting her pool shot.”  
  
“Of course she does.”     
  
“There’s a privacy lock on the door.”   B’Elanna says, and hops down from the barstool she was sitting on.   “But I can get past that for you.   It’s about time you two had a civil conversation.”  
  
  
Harry walks into Sandrine’s and his heart almost aches, it is so familiar.    Except Tabitha is leaning over the pool table, wearing a black shirt and black pants, and she’s setting up the nine-ball for a shot so daring Tom would have offered to check her for balls.    And damn, she makes the shot.  
  
“How did you get in here?”   she asks, not bothering to look up.  
  
“B’Elanna let me in.”  He stands across the table.  
  
“Thought you’d be out at the beach with all your friends.”  
  
Harry sighs.   “You could come out there too, you know.”  
  
“I’m allergic to sunlight.   It makes me burn and my skin peels and I get very nasty when that happens.  Of course, a lot of people would say I’m nasty anyway.”  
  
“There’s sunblock cream, or sunshades, or -“  
  
“Oh, stop it!   Stop giving me all that _science_!”   Tab screams, and throws the pool cue on the ground.   “I can’t take it from _you_ , because it’s the kind of thing I used to hear from _Heather_ , and now _Heather’s dead_ and _you’re here_ , you’re some _stupid half-assed replacement_ , and we’re _supposed to be happy with you!   And you know what?   You’re nothing like Heather!”_  
  
“I know.”   Harry says.  
  
“Heather was _sweet_ and _kind_ and she used to read me _poetry_ and she would play _stupid shit on the clarinet_ and I … _I can’t stand it!_    _And I can’t stand you!”_  
  
She starts crying, and storms towards the doors.  
  
Harry catches her, tries to hold her.   She is sobbing, her whole back is shaking.  
  
“I know I’m not Heather.”   Harry says after a while.   “I know that.”  
  
“Goddamn right you aren’t.”  
  
“But… I do know some poetry.”  
  
Tab looks up at him, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.  
  
“And I can play stupid shit on the clarinet.”   Harry tries to smile at her.  
  
She gives him a speculative look.   “How’s your pool game?”  
  
“Kind of bad.”  
  
“Good.    Rack ‘em up.   Let’s see how many replicator rations you can lose.”  
  
He lost a week and a half’s worth of replicator rations.   But it was worth it, because she stopped crying.    She was totally taking advantage of him, though.   Using her tits and ass like that.     
  
She was so like Tom it almost made him laugh.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Harry gets a new place to live, and a toaster.

The nice thing about having mostly female friends on this ship,  Harry found, was that when you did get new quarters they frequently brought you housewarming gifts.  It was little things like that.   He could not imagine most of his old Voyager friends bringing housewarming gifts.   This time he had cookies and a dreamcatcher from Taya and some sort of plant from this ship’s Tuvok, who was fond of orchids also, and a little metal sculpture from B’Elanna.   Kes brought him another plant, something she’d grown in their hydroponics bay with a lot of leaves, and Neelix (this ship’s Neelix was female) made some kind of … leola root bread that was actually not too awful.  
  
The party was long over when his door chime rang again.  
  
“Come in.”  
  
Nothing.  
  
He walked over to the door and answered it.  
  
Tab was standing at the door with a box on her hands.   She was staring at the box.  
  
“I heard Neelix made you bread.”      
  
“Uh, yeah.”   Harry can hardly breathe.    They’d played a game or two of pool, they’d shared bridge shifts, but this is the first time she’s actually tried to _find_ him.  
  
“It’s better toasted.”   She hands him the box.  
  
Harry stares at the box.   “Um … thank you?”  
  
“Your guy didn’t have a toaster?”  
  
“He might have.  But I didn’t know anything about it.   We weren’t …. we weren’t together that long.   Just a few weeks.”  
  
“I can show you how it works, I guess.”  
  
There’s a pause.  
  
“Do you mind if I come in?”  
  
“No!   Come in, come in.”    Harry steps to the side.     
  
Tab opens the box.   “See, it’s an appliance.   You slice the bread with a knife - a sharp knife - and then you put it in these slots here, and you push this lever down, here.   And you wait, and it pops up when it’s done.   Then you put things on it and eat it, for breakfast.   I like peanut butter.   Heather liked strawberry jam.”  
  
“Thank you.”   Harry says.  
  
“Welcome.”   Tab stalks off, and the door swishes shut behind her.  
  
  
Then there was an away mission, and Tab had to fly them down in a shuttle, because the atmosphere  was filled with some kind of weird radiation that they were still figuring out.   Harry went down, and Taya, and Sue Nicoletti from Engineering, and Kestra Stadi, one of Tuvok’s security girls.   Harry was getting used to being the only guy on most of these away missions.  
  
Tab landed the shuttle.  “All right, ladies - and Harry - let’s go.   There’s dilithium out there, and some kind of edible stuff, I guess.   I bet Neelix will ruin it.”  
  
“But how will she ruin it?”   Stadi asks with a laugh.   “Will she fry it, or bake it, or put it in a casserole?”  
  
“Right now, she seems to be into stewing.”  Sue says dryly.  
  
“Well, let’s get whatever it is, so we can see for ourselves.”  Taya says, and gestures them all out of the shuttle.   “Nicoletti, Stadi, the three of us can go towards those caves and look for dilithium.  Mr. Kim, Miss Paris, you two see what you can do about looking for edibles.”  
  
“Commander -“  Tabitha says.  
  
“Is there a _problem_ , Lieutenant?”   Taya drew herself up to her full height.  
  
“Uh, no ma’am.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
  
Harry walks beside Tab and keeps his eye out for things that look edible.  
  
“Tell me about your guy.”  she says, all of a sudden.  
  
“About Tom?”   he says, surprised.  
  
She shrugs.   “Might be interesting to learn about my doppelganger.”  
  
“He would have liked you.”   Harry laughs.   “You remind me a lot of him, actually.   He got kicked out of Starfleet and spent ten months in prison in Auckland for a piloting accident.”  
  
“Caldik Prime.”   Tabitha says.   Her mouth twists bitterly.   “I wasn’t kicked out.   I was busted from lieutenant commander down to crewman.   Everybody wanted to see me suffer.   Had to work my way back up, no thanks to my fucking mother.”  
  
“With Tom it was his father.   I don’t know much about his father.   He never said much about him.”  
  
“What did he like?”   Tab knelt down and started picking berries off a bush.  
  
“Beating people at pool for replicator rations.   Programming the holodeck.  Flirting.   Flying starships.  History.    Listening to me play the clarinet.    Boats.”  
  
“I love boats.”   Tab says, a longing, wistful look in her eyes.  ‘All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.’  
  
“What’s that from?”   Harry asks.  
  
“A poem.  ‘Sea Fever’, by John Masefield.   One of my favorites.”   She pops a berry in her mouth.   “These aren’t bad.   How’d you guys get together?”  
  
“I’d run out of replicator rations late one night, and he said he could think of something else I could pay him with.   I figured it was holodeck time, but then he kissed me.”   Harry laughed, remembering.   “So I missed my shot, kind of on purpose, and I kissed him again.   And again, and again, and I lost the game, and he gave me this slow smile and said he’d thought of something better, and we started making out right there on the pool table.”     Harry sighs.     
  
“What happened to him?”   Tab asks.  
  
“The Vidiians got him.”  
  
She winces.   “Vicious organ-stealing bastards.”  
  
“Maybe Tom and Heather are hanging around someplace.”   Harry smiles a bit.  
  
“Heather’s getting her butt whipped at pool.”   Tabitha says.   “When your guy isn’t pinching it, I bet.”  
  
“Yeah, that’s about right.”   Harry starts digging up something.   “Ugh.  More leola root.”  
  
“Great.  Just what Neelix needs.”   Tabitha says.   “Maybe she can make more bread.”  
  
“Yeah.   It is pretty good toasted.   I tried it with peanut butter and strawberry jam yesterday.   That was pretty good.”  
  
“It’s like your guy and Heather, on toast.”   Tabitha says, smirking.   She hands him a basket.  
  
“Yeah.”   Harry laughs.   “It is.”  
  
They do find some dilithium and some magnasite in the caves, and they bring it back in the shuttle.  Harry watches those bitten nails sail across the panels.     
  
“There’s an ion storm in the upper troposphere.”   Tab says.   “Compensating.”     
  
There was a slight bump, but not much of one.    
  
“You can handle it, Tabby.”   Stadi laughs.  
  
“I’m not a cat.”   But Harry catches a slight smile on the edge of her lips.   “Who the hell designed these type-six shuttles?   It’s like flying a _brick_ through _oatmeal_ , sometimes.”     
  
  
Harry runs across B’Elanna in the mess hall a couple days later.  
  
“Thanks for all that dilithium.”   she says.    
  
“Oh, thank Taya and Nicoletti and Stadi for that, not me.”    
  
“So how are you and Tab getting along?”   He sees a twinkle in her eyes, one he’s seen before.  
  
“Oh, come _on_.   The woman is mourning her ex-fiancee, B’Elanna.”  
  
“I didn’t ask that.   I just asked how you were getting along.”  
  
“Fine.”   Harry sighs.   “Just fine.   We play pool.   She gave me a toaster for my new quarters.”  
  
“If you play things right, Harry, you might get more out of this than just a toaster.”  
  
He looks at her strangely.   “What?”  
  
“Oh, _come on,_ Harry.    You like girls, right?”  
  
“Sure I do!”   He blurts.   “But -“  
  
A bunch of other tables look at them curiously.     
  
“But what, Harry?”   B’Elanna’s eyes are dancing.   “I’ve seen you watching Tab.”  
  
“So?”  
  
“She is pretty.   All that blonde hair.   Nice, isn’t it?   And the eyes.   They’re almost the same blue as the warp core.”   She smiles.  “I wish she wouldn’t bite her nails, though.   Bad habit.   Heather used to paint them for her.   You could do that.”   B’Elanna puts her uneaten … Harry wasn’t sure what Tuvix was serving today, but it was green and orange and gloppy … back in the recyler.  
  
  
He runs into Tabitha on the way to the bridge a couple days later.    The ship rocks, and Tabitha stumbles.    Harry catches her and holds her against himself for a long moment.  
  
She’s warm, so warm.   Her breasts press against his chest, and one of his arms wraps around her waist.   She’s wearing a light, spicy perfume.   The little barrette holding her hair back has some kind of engraved design on it, a kind of complicated knot.    Her hair is same color ripe wheat is, and her eyes are the color of the South Carolina skies over Harry’s childhood home.  
  
“Sorry.”   Tabitha says, and pulls away.   She keeps walking down the hall.  
  
“It’s all right.”  
  
Tuvix runs through the halls of the starship.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are dreams. And an explosion.

Then Harry and Tabitha get some kind of weird sickness and Voyager has to strand them on some planet.   The Captain is going to try and find that Vidiian scientist that the Doctor dealt with a while back, but it might be a while before that happens.     
  
Harry starts setting up the tents they’ve been left with.  Tabitha looks around at the campsite.     
  
“Hey!  There’s a river back here in the forest.”   she shouts.     
  
“Great!”  Harry shouts back.      
  
After he sets up the tents, he hasn’t seen Tabitha, so he goes back to see the river.      
  
He looks through the trees, just wandering.  “Tabitha?   Tab?”   
  
Nothing.  
  
He keeps looking, and then finds it - a broad river, twisting through the trees.  
  
“Tab?”  
  
Still nothing.  
  
Then a splash, like something surfacing.   Harry turns toward it.  
  
Tabitha’s standing in the middle of the river, completely naked.   Her hair is slicked back,wet, and she’s trying to hide her nudity behind her hands.     
  
“Sorry!”    He turns his back.   “Sorry, I’m sorry!   I didn’t know you were … swimming.   Do you want me to get you a … towel or something?”  
  
“No!   I’m fine.”   She grabbed her clothes and stalked past him.   He could see her flush bright pink in the mottled dimness of the glade.   “If you can find my … my boots, that might be nice.”  
  
  
Tom came to him that night in a dream.  
  
 _Hey._   he said, leaning on the pool table.    _Like the new girl you found._    
  
 _I wasn’t sure what you’d think._   Harry shrugs.     
  
 _She’s pretty hot.   Reminds me of me._  
  
 _I thought she would._   Harry looks across the table.   _I’m sorry, Tom._  
  
 _Sorry for what?_  
  
 _For leaving you.   To be taken apart by the VIdiians._  
  
 _Janeway ordered you to go._ The dream-Tom shrugs.   _Besides, it was fast.     And there’s this cute girl version of you here, you know?   Name’s Heather.   She sucks at pool, but that’s okay._ One of Tom’s old sunny grins.   _I’m teaching her some good tricks._  
  
 _I bet you are._    Harry feels himself grinning back.  
  
 _It’s okay, Harry._    Tom pats him on the arm, and he can actually feel his hand in the dream, solid and real.   _We had fun, and it was great.   But time to move on.   She’s cute._  
  
 _I have your blessing?_  
  
 _Harry.   I don’t do blessings._    That fond, exasperated smile.   _Get yourself some tail._  
  
He wakes up smiling.  
  
  
Tab looks like she hasn’t slept much.  
  
“You all right?”   he asks her at breakfast.  
  
She nods and goes for a long walk.     
  
  
He has another dream the next night.   This time Tom is sitting in a shuttlecraft, with his feet up on the conn.   He sees the shuttle rising through the atmosphere of a planet.  
  
 _Hey._   he says.  
  
 _Hey._   Harry replies.  _Where we going?_  
  
 _Just a little trip, thought I’d take a run around the planet._   Tom smiles.   _With my best buddy.   Heather’s having a chat with your girl._  
  
 _Oh.   Is that what she’s dreaming about?_  
  
 _Yeah.   Damn, she takes a lot of convincing_.   Tom gives him that ‘I’m-an-innocent-babe-in-the-woods’ look.  _Remind you of anyone?_  
  
 _It does remind me of someone, yeah._   Harry gives him a grin back.  
  
 _Now._   Tom spins the shuttle around.   _Look at that sunrise._  
  
Harry looks.   It’s nice.   Oranges, blues, and the slightest bit of pale pink.   The same pink as the nail polish he’d found in the box of Heather’s things.  
  
 _That’s really nice._   Harry murmurs.  
  
Tom squeezes his hand, and the whole ship vanishes.    
  
He’s on a mountain, in a tent.     
  
He looks across the tent at a very familiar pair of eyes.   Just like his own.   The hair is longer, tied back in a ponytail that’s failing out.   They’re both wearing pyjamas, but Harry doesn’t feel the least bit cold.  
  
 _Heather?_   he asks.  
  
She turns around and smiles a familiar smile, one he’s seen in the mirror.   _You must be Harry.   Tab’s spoken about you._  
  
 _What has she said?_  
  
 _Oh, you know._ Heather sits down across the tent, with her legs crossed.   _Hasn’t really spoken.  You have to read between the lines.  She likes you a lot.   She thinks you’re cute, actually.   But she’s stubborn.   Reminds me of Tom.   Boy, is he a bastard when he wants to be._   Her smile quirks up.   _Cute one, though.   Nice ass._  
  
 _I always thought so._    Harry smirks.  
  
 _Glad we agree._   She laughs.  
  
  
Then Harry finds himself back on the ship, holding Tabitha in his arms, watching Tuvix run past them -   
  
And the ship turns into the river, and he’s holding Tab, naked and wet -   
  
And then he’s lying awake.  
  
He rubs his eyes.     
  
Well, that was one hell of a dream.  
  
  
After a few days, the captain gets in contact with that Vidiian scientist, and they have a remedy, so they come down and get Harry and Tabitha.     
  
But then they get raided by the fucking Kazon, and they get put down on some … caveman planet.  
  
With real, actual cavemen.  
  
  
“I hate this.”   Tab says to Harry as they wash their clothes in the river.   “Why do we have to do _laundry_?”  
  
“Would you rather cook?”  
  
“No way.   I burn stuff.   Unless you like Cajun food?”     
  
“I do like Cajun food, actually.”   Harry says.   “Not burnt.  But I don’t mind fried catfish.”  
  
“You’re out of your mind, Harry.   I don’t eat anything with _whiskers_.”  
  
“You don’t eat the whiskers, Tab.”   Harry rinses the soap out of the clothes, chuckling.   “You cut off that part.”  
  
  
The strange thing is that it’s Laura Suder, the weird psycho Betazoid that’s already killed a crewman on the ship, and the holographic Doctor manage to save them all.   And some passing freighters from Talaxia that Neelix managed to get a transmission get out to at the last second.  
  
“Your people are good in a fight, Neelix.”  Stadi says, grinning, as they go back on board.     
  
“They are!   Very scrappy.”   she says proudly, looking around at the pantry.   “Oh, those scummy Kazon.   What a _mess_ they’ve made of my kitchen.”  
  
  
And then there was that explosion on Akitiria.  
  
“Will you hurry up?”  Tab shouts from outside.   “You are so _slow_!”  
  
“I am not slow!”   Harry says evenly.   “I am … thorough, that’s all.   I am … _thorough_.   I am thoroughly looking through this music shop.”  
  
“There’s a nice restaurant up the street!”   Tab sighs, standing in the door of the shop with her hands on her hips.   “The Delaneys said they’d be meeting us there for lunch.”  
  
“Well, fine.”   Harry pays for the sheet music he’s bought.  “Let’s go, then.”  
  
They walk down the street casually, looking in windows.  
  
“What do you think of Maggie Delaney?”   Tab asks him.  
  
A surge of jealousy comes up hot in Harry’s chest, and he squashes it.   “Not your type.”  
  
“I wasn’t thinking for _me_.”  she says, laughing.   “I was thinking for Taya, she could use somebody cute to chase around - what was that?”  
  
“What was -“  
  
There was an explosion up the street.   Harry was knocked backwards by the recoil.  
  
“ _Harry_!”   Tab screams, and throws herself over him.  
  
  
They wake up in sickbay.    Harry sits up.    
  
“Careful, Harry.”  Kes comes over and fusses over him.   “You were hurt, but not badly.”  
  
“How’s Tabitha?”   He looks over at the other bio-bed.   Tab’s lying on it, covered in a blanket.  
  
“She took the worst of the explosion.   The Doctor got the bomb fragments out, but she’s very weak now.”   Kes pats his hand.   “She’ll be fine.   I promise.    It’s a good thing you weren’t walking faster, you were just on the edge of it.   They say that was a terrorist bombing, and the authorities are looking for someone to blame.    Ensign Baytart is taking us out of orbit right now.”  
  
Harry sighs and lies back down.  
  
He has to talk to Tab.    
  
When she wakes up.     
  
  
It takes him hours to get out of sickbay and Tabitha’s there for another day.   She was supposed to be there for two days, but she said that the Doctor was much too irritating to tolerate for another whole day and if she didn’t get released she’d stage a jailbreak, and Stadi felt sorry for her and convinced the captain to let her out early.     
  
Harry went down there that afternoon, after his shift.   He just lets himself in.   The code hasn’t changed.  
  
“Oh, it’s you.”   Tab says, looking up.   She’s lying on her bed wearing pink flannel pyjamas with green elephants on them, and it’s strangely disorienting.   The place is a mess.   He sees a bookmark in the middle of Jules Verne’s _20,000 Leagues Under The Sea_.   “Did you want something?”  
  
“What were you doing?”   He asks her.  
  
“Well, I was reading, before you got here.”  
  
“That’s not what I meant.   What were you doing, down on that planet?   Akitiri?”  
  
“Oh.”    She shrugs.   “Sorry, I didn’t get your sheet music, the stuff you bought.”  
  
“I don’t _care_ about the sheet music, Tab!”   He shouts.   “Why did you … why did you throw yourself over me like that?”  
  
“Oh.”   Her face goes very still.   “Then.”  
  
“Yes.    Then.”  
  
She picks up her book again.  
  
“Tab?”  
  
Nothing.  
  
“Tabitha!”  
  
Still nothing.  
  
Harry stares at her, and then lets himself out.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are exploding elephants. And a bottle of very potent wine.

B’Elanna comes unannounced into his quarters about two hours later.   “Did you hit your head?”  
  
Harry looks up from the padd he’s reading.   “What?”  
  
“Did you hit your head?   In the explosion, did you hit your head?”  
  
“I don’t think so, no.”  
  
“Then you’re just normally a dumb pet’aQ.”  
  
“What?”  
  
She takes hold of his shoulders and shakes him gently.   “Tabitha, you idiot.   She didn’t just throw herself over you because of your pretty face.   She _likes you_ , Harry.   I’m-going-to-save-your-ass-from-an-explosion-likes-you, which is a lot.”  
  
“Oh.”   Harry had thought that was it, but it was strangely nice to have someone else confirm things.  
  
“So what are you going to do?”   B’Elanna looks at him.  
  
“I have … no idea.”   Harry says, because he really doesn’t.  
  
So he sleeps on it, hoping his dreams will tell him something.   Unfortunately, they are filled with green elephants and explosions.   When the elephants explode, there is poly-stuffing everywhere.   Nothing really helpful at all.  
  
So the next day, he finds Tabitha in the holodeck again.  
  
“Wanna play pool?”   she asks him, holding out a pool cue.  
  
“Come with me.”  he says.  
  
“Where are we going?”   She asks him curiously.  
  
“To the beach.”  
  
“Harry.”   She puts her hands on her hips again.   “I _told you_ about _me_ and _sunshine_.”  
  
“Come on.   Just this one time, Tab?”   He lets his eyes do the coaxing.  It always worked to get him what he wanted with Tom.   “Please?”  
  
“Oh … all right, Harry.”  She comes out of the bar.  “This better be worth it, though.”  
  
He comes in to the other holodeck, and she follows him.    
  
Everybody stares.   B’Elanna, who’s chatting with Sue Nicoletti.   The Captain and Taya.   Neelix and Kes.   Samantha Wildman, who has baby Gareth in a front carrier and is talking with Maggie and Jane Delaney.  Everybody looks up at them.  
  
Tab looks askance at Harry.   “You’re out of your mind.”   she mutters.  
  
“Maybe.”   Harry smiles, and takes her hand.   It is slender and warm.  She still bites her nails.  “Come on, there’s a table over there, with an umbrella.   What do you want to drink?”  
  
“Uh … I don’t know.”   She looks awkward.   “Um.  Samarian Sunset.”  
  
“Great.   You get the table, I’ll get us drinks.”  
  
He orders them two drinks and takes them over to the table.  Tab is fidgeting, drumming her fingers on the table’s surface, piloting an imaginary shuttle.  
  
“Where are we going?”  he asks her, nodding at her hands.  
  
She blushes.  “Old habit.   I used to plan imaginary shuttle trips.”  
  
“When?”  
  
“After Caldik Prime.   When I was busted down to crewman, before I made ensign again and worked my way out of the fucking cargo bay.   So many pretend shuttle flights.   Went to Risa a lot of times.  I think I can plot that course in my sleep.  I might have, actually.”   She sighs.   “Plotted the Caldik Prime accident over and over again - over and over and over.   Don’t think about things too much, Harry.   That’s always been my problem.  I think about things too much.”  
  
“You do?”   He has a feeling they’re not just talking about shuttle piloting any more.  
  
“I brood.  Spend a lot of time brooding.”   She drinks half of her drink.   “The best things of my life were things I didn’t have to think about.   Things I just did.  Things that just happened.”  She drinks the other half of her drink in a long swallow.   “Thanks for this.”   And she walks out.  
  
He can’t think if that was good or bad.  He decides that on the whole it was good.  
  
  
The next day he replicates a book of poetry, marks a passage in it, wraps it up, and goes to her quarters after shift.   He just lets himself in again.  
  
“Oh, hi.”   She’s sitting on the sofa, eating peanut butter toast.   “What’s up?”  
  
“Not much.   Just have something for you, that’s all.”   He holds out the gift, wrapped in silver paper.  
  
Tabitha looks at him curiously, strangely.   “It’s not my birthday.”  
  
“No, it’s not, but I can give you things if I want to.”     
  
She unwraps the package.   “Poetry?”     She flicks through the pages of the book.   “Emily Dickenson.”   Her face fades into a small smile.   “I love Emily Dickenson.   Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all …”  
  
“And sweetest in the gale is heard, and sore must be the storm, that could abash the little bird that kept so many warm.”   Harry quotes.   “One of my favorites, too.”  
  
“One of her best.”   Tab says, blushing.   “Thank you, Harry.”  
  
“You’re welcome.”   Harry smiles.     
  
He’s almost halfway out the door when he hears her.  “Harry?”  
  
“Yeah?”   He turns around.     
  
“I have … a nice bottle of some kind of wine here.  Um.   It’s red, I think … I know Heather used to like red wine … uh, if you want to share it with me?”      
  
He beams at her.   “I’d love to.”     
  
  
Harry tops off Tabitha’s glass, and pours himself the very last of the wine.     
  
“You’re tryin’ to get me drunk.”   Tab says, giggling.   
  
“Is it working?”   Harry grins at her lasciviously.  
  
“Maybe.”   She gets up, stumbles around the table, and lands unceremoniously in Harry’s lap.    “Whoops.   Not so good at walkin’ when I’m drunk.”    Tab buries her face in Harry’s shoulder.   “You’re comfy.”  
  
“You’re soft.”  Harry murmurs into her neck.   “Where’d you get this wine?”  
  
“Coupla planets back.”   She hums into his neck.   “You smell good.”  
  
“Mmm.   So do you.”  
  
She looks up into his eyes.   She is drunk, her eyes are hazy and unfocused sky.   He looks down at her and knows that he’s the same.  
  
Maybe they shouldn’t do this.  
  
Tabitha leaned up and kissed him with a warm mouth that tasted of red wine, and Harry stopped thinking about whether they should or shouldn’t do this, because it was an imperfect and beautiful kiss, both at the same time, and then Tab was pulling off his shirt and licking his chest.     
  
Harry nuzzles her breasts, pulls her t-shirt over her head.   He has a moment with the bra but he manages to remember how to get the damn thing off.    
  
“These are nice.”   He murmurs into one of them.     
  
“Thanks.”   She grins lopsidedly.   “So’s this.”  And she actually grabs him by the cock, and he laughs, a shocked inhale.    “Been a while since I’ve seen one that’s part of the standard flight kit.”    
  
“I’ll try not to disappoint you.”   Harry thinks about trying to carry her over to the bed, but decides that would be a really awful idea.  
  
  
He wakes up the next morning with a head that’s _definitely_ feeling the effects of half a bottle of wine.   That was for sure more alcoholic than Earth vintages.  He felt like that one time he’d drank a bottle of Saurian brandy straight up.  
  
Tab groans beside him.     
  
Harry’s not sure how to handle this.     He’s really not.   He wants to stay.   He likes it here; he likes Tab.  He really wants to stay.   But he’s not sure what she wants.  
  
“Maybe you should go.”   she says in a soft whisper.  
  
Harry gets up, gathers his clothes, and leaves the room.  
  
He feels like an idiot.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a Long Talk about Stuff.

Harry gets himself a hangover remedy, has a long hot shower, a few minutes of recrimination, and then he goes to find Taya.  
  
He runs into Tab on the way out of Taya’s office.   He hears shouting, and then she runs out.  She doesn’t meet his eyes.  
  
He goes in.     
  
“No.”   Taya says to him.  
  
“How do you know what I want when I haven’t even asked for it yet?”   Harry asks.  
  
“You want me to put you on a different bridge shift than Tab.   And no, I’m not going to do that.”    She puts down the padd she was reading.   “I just had that argument with her.  You did something stupid over a bottle of something last night and fell into bed together and now she’s brooding and kicked you out of her quarters and you feel dumb and want to avoid her, right?”  
  
“Uh … are you a telepath?”  
  
“No, gossip runs like the _wind_ on a ship full of women.   And I _observe_ , Harry, I wouldn’t be much of an officer and a counselor if I didn’t.   My advice, if you want it:  don’t let her brood for too long.   That’s just more untangling you’ll have to do later.”  
  
“Do you have any other advice?”   Now he feels ridiculous, but he’s grasping at straws now.    
  
“Oh, how to make up?   She’s probably in that bar again.”    Taya smiles at him.     
  
He decides to try poetry - it got him through the door last time.   Well, he gets through the door fairly easily,  and it doesn’t look like she’s heard him.   She’s sitting at a dark corner table, brooding.  
  
“At length I saw a lady within call, stiller than chisell’d marble, standing there; a daughter of the gods, divininely tall, and most divinely fair.”  he says into the silence.  
  
“Tennyson.  A Dream of Fair Women, stanza twenty-two.”   she says to her glass.  
  
“Not one of your favorites?”   He pulls up a chair.  
  
“It is one of my favorites, actually, I like Tennyson.   Why are you here, Harry?”  
  
“Do you regret what happened last night?”   Might as well be direct about it.  
  
She stares into her glass for a while.   “I don’t know.   I just don’t know.”   She takes a long drink.   “It was one of those things I didn’t really think about.”  
  
“What do you think about it now?”  
  
“I don’t _know_ , Harry.”     
  
“You _do_ know.   You just don’t want to say.”  
  
“How are you so smart now?”  
  
“You forget, Tab.  I had a whole different life.”   He smiles.   “Before you.”  
  
“Christ.   Your _guy_.”   She sighs, downs the rest of her glass, gets up and paces around the room.   “Don’t you feel like you’re cheating on him?”  
  
“No!   Tab, I _can’t_ be cheating on him!   He’s _dead_!”  
  
“I _know_ he’s dead!   But …”  
  
“But what, Tab?”   He tries to look her in the eyes, and she won’t look at him.    “But Heather’s dead too, right?”  
  
“Yeah.”   she says, sitting back down and staring into the empty glass.  
  
The pieces are fitting together in his head.   “And you feel like you’re cheating on Heather.”  
  
She doesn’t do anything, just keeps staring.  
  
“Look, Tab, you aren’t cheating on her.   But I can’t convince you of that.   The only one who can convince you of that is you.”   He reaches out and takes her hand.   “Or maybe Heather, if she comes back to you in a dream.”  
  
“How did you know about that?”   she whispers harshly.  
  
“Because Tom came back to me in a couple of mine.   And Heather was in one of mine, too.”   He sighs.   “If they are a … you know, a vision of the next world, or to the world beyond, or whatever you choose to believe … you can talk to her.”   Harry shrugs.   “Maybe get some peace of mind.”  
  
She has a refill.   And another.   Then she walks back to her cabin.  
  
He walks back to his cabin, too.  
  
  
He can’t sleep worth a damn that night.   He tried warm milk, which was _disgusting_ , and he tried counting sheep, which was pointless.    He was worried about Tab, but not worried enough to go and see her.  
  
Then he hears his door slide open.  
  
“Harry, you should really stop setting your door code to your _birthday_.”   Tab walks in.   “You don’t want to give the illusion that you’re _dumb_ and _easy_.”  
  
“Are you all right?”   He leans on his elbow to get a better look at her.  
  
“You tell me.”    She looks pale, composed, and determined.   She leans down and kisses him.  
  
It is a wet sloppy kiss, one that is hungry and wants more, so Harry gives her more, because he wants more, too.   He picks her up around her waist and sets her down beside him in the bed.   They wrestle for a while in the bed.  Somehow the clothes she’s wearing - a simple pink nightgown - get thrown across the room.   Harry’s already nude, and when their bodies slide together, it’s like sparks fly between them.   Their bodies fit together like an ancient puzzle.  
  
“Tab, Tab.”   he moans as he comes, staring into those blue eyes and thinking of this universe, and another one, and poetry, and himself.  
  
Tab smiles at him and puts her head on his shoulder.  “Harry.”  
  
“Gonna kick me out in the morning?”   he jokes.  
  
“Of your bed?  That should be interesting.”   she yawns.  
  
“I’d go if you wanted me to leave.”  he murmurs.  
  
In response, she snuggles beside him and sleeps.  
  
She’s gone in the morning.     
  
He expected that, of course, and he sees her on the bridge and she says nothing about it.    But the next night is the same; he goes back to his quarters and can’t sleep, and then Tab comes in looking for him, they end up having sex again.     
  
This song and dance goes on for a week and a half.      
  
Then Harry waits up on the sofa in his pyjamas.   He drinks cocoa and thinks about past Christmases.  
  
It occurs to him that his parents are dead, here.   So he has nothing much here, except the tenuous whatever-this-is that’s forming with Tab.     
  
The door swishes open.  
  
Tab comes in.  She’s wearing a pair of blue and pink pyjamas with sheep on them tonight.  
  
“Hi.”   he says.  “Want some cocoa?”  
  
She jumps a little bit and whirls on her feet, but is not easily startled - good reflexes.     “With marshmallows?”  
  
“Of course with marshmallows.   There’s no point in having it with no marshmallows.”   Harry gets her some cocoa and brings it over.   “Thought we could talk.”  
  
“Okay.”    She blows on the cocoa, forming little ripples in it.   “You first.”  
  
“Do you like this?   Do you want to go on like this?   The sneaking around every night, the sex, the not talking about it later?”    Harry asks her bluntly.    “Because I don’t really care for the idea.”  
  
She just sits, waiting.   Staring at her cocoa.  
  
“Tab, I lost more than Tom when I came over here.   I lost _everything_.  I had parents, friends back home in that universe.   And now … all I have is what I have on the ship.”    He takes a sip of his cocoa.   “I didn’t really _want_ to have my organs harvested by Vidiians, but in some way it would have made it easier.   Because here, in this cabin, this is all I’ve got.   This, and whatever we’re doing.”   He takes another sip of his drink.   “Okay.   Now you talk.”  
  
She takes a long drink and looks out the window, and he’s about to say something when she starts speaking, softly.      
  
“I never really expected you.   I never thought about you in the first place.   You were just … Heather’s replacement.  And to start with, I hated you, because you looked too much like her, and that hurt.   It hurt my heart, and the little places left where my soul should be, if you believe in souls.   But then … you started being nice to me.   That was weird.   And Heather came to me in dreams and told me not to be such a stupid ass, and stop brooding like I always do.  That was on that weird planet, when we were stranded?”  
  
He nods.  He remembers.  
  
“And damn it, Harry, I started to really like you.   You were nice and funny and you told dumb jokes and you played stupid shit that made me laugh on the clarinet and I couldn’t just let you die, because it would be like losing Heather again.   But then you started buying me stuff.  It was like we were dating.  And then we had that bottle of wine.   And we had sex.   And I felt … weird, and guilty.   It was good, don’t get me wrong.”   she says, waving her hands.  “It was great sex.   That’s the problem.  If it had been lousy sex, I could have just waved it off.   But no, it was good.   And I was really embarrassed.    Because … I was starting to forget what Heather looked like.   What she used to smell like.   The sounds she used to make in her sleep.  All those little things.   I tried to explain this to Taya, but I got pissed, and she got pissed at me, and she said I should deal with my shit and refused to assign me to a different shift.”      
  
She drinks the rest of her cocoa.     
  
“But the funny thing is, I couldn’t stop coming here.  I couldn’t stop coming back to you.   Because … I really like you, Harry.   I might even love you, as stupid as that sounds.    But I’m so scared that I’m going to lose what’s left of Heather.   And I don’t want to do that.”  
  
“I have a holo of Tom in my wallet.”   he says.  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Yeah.”  He goes into the bedroom and brings out his wallet.  “I should get copies made.”  
  
She looks at the picture.   It’s a silly one, but Tom was always silly, and now he’s glad he has it.   Tom is making a ridiculous face at the camera, with eyes crossed and a stuck-out tongue.     
  
“I have a few of Heather.”   Tab confesses, looking at the picture of Tom.   “She hated having pictures taken.”  
  
“You don’t have to forget her, Tab.”   Harry smiles.   “You never will.   Because she’ll always come back when you least expect it, in some memory - a smell, or a sound.   That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t move on.   But you’ll never forget her.”   He puts his arm around Tab’s shoulders.     
  
“Do you mean that?”    Her eyes are full of unshed tears.  
  
“Yes.”   Harry nods.   “I really do.”


	6. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end. Where there are children, and a mysterious planet. And Freud. And snuggling.

_Five years later:_  
  
Tab sat on the hill outside the playground with her three year old daughter and wiped the slimy biscut crumbs off her face.     “Did you enjoy that cookie?  It looks like you did.”  
  
Harry touched her shoulder, and she looks up with a smile.   “How are my boys?”  
  
“I adore you, you sweet woman.”   He kisses her and sits down behind her so he can wrap his arms around her shoulders.   “Tommy flew the shuttle all the way through the atmosphere.”     
  
“Good for you!”   She ran her fingers through her son’s blonde curls.  “Was it fun?”  
  
“It was great, mom.”    He smiled at her, blue eyes twinkling back.     “Can we go out again later?    Dad says you’re even better than he is.”  
  
“I am the best  pilot Starfleet ever put out.”  Tab says simply, with a smile.  “And I won’t deny it.”  
  
Heather ran forward and started digging in the mud.  “Ooooh, wormies!”   she says, with an enormous, toothy grin.  
  
“I’ll go handle Heather’s worms.”    Harry loped off toward his muddy daughter.  
  
Tab looked at this little family she’d made, part of the bigger Voyager family that was still trying to find its way to Earth, and smiled.     
  
“Credit for your thoughts.”   Harry says later that evening, when the kids are asleep.  
  
“Freud says that we are never alone in bed.   There are always the ghosts of former lovers.”   She smiles.  “And that makes me think about you and me.”  
  
“So the bed is crowded.”   Harry says.  
  
She smiles.   “I like to snuggle.”


End file.
